Page 118

“Love you,” she whispers back.

I slept there the night you said ‘I think I’m

falling in love with you,’ igniting a great unendurable

belongingness, like a match in a forest fire.

I burned so long so quiet you must have wondered

if I loved you back. I did, I did, I do.

—from “the pillowcase” by annelyse gelman

From Paloma Blake, never received by Bennett Reiner

Bennett,

I’m sorry.

P

Chapter 52

THEN: Freshman Year, New Year’s Eve, 11:52 p.m.

Bennett

Seven is whining.

He’s done it before, when Paloma was having a nightmare—so that he could wake me. But that hasn’t happened in a month or so.

And yet—

“Quiet, please,” a voice begs.

Seven whines again, louder, his paws soft on the carpet, but his collar jingles. My eyes open, spotting Paloma standing near the door, trying to shove Seven back so that she can . . . leave?

“Paloma?” She pauses, her face shadowed and hard to read in the darkness of my room. “What—what are you doing?”

“I didn’t want to wake you,” she whispers. “I need to go.”

My brow furrows. “Is everything okay? I can drive you wherever, just tell me what’s—”

“No, Bennett,” she cuts me off, voice harsh. “I’m . . . I can’t do this anymore.”

Shaking my head, I sputter out, “Talk to me. What’s going on? Where are you going?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she asks. My stomach rolls, cheeks flushing in embarrassment because no, it’s not obvious to me. Maybe she doesn’t mean it that way, but I’ve felt something was off since we left dinner at my mom’s and my brain started spiraling the entire ride home. Something is wrong.

“Explain it to me. Why—what’s happening?”

I try to run through the last twenty-four hours in my head. The dinner with my mom and stepdad. It was awkward, sure—but not more than my usual dinners alone with them. What is going on?

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.” The words feel more like begging than I mean for them to.

Frustrated, she runs a hand through her tangled blond hair, swooping it up into a knot with an elastic from her wrist